Developer unbowed by real estate woes

N. Clark Judd

Robert Wagner is an optimist. He still likes the real estate market in Riverdale even though he might have to sell his half-completed tower on Oxford Avenue andeven though his Hudson Ridge development has taken far longer than he'd hoped to finish up.

Mr. Wagner, responsible for three new residential projects in progress around Riverdale, does have something to be happy about. Cambridge Mews, the condo complex at 3536 Cambridge Ave., recently received a temporary certificate of occupancy and has only eight of 31 units left unsold. Another project he's quick to point to, Hudson Ridge - 10 freestanding houses just south of the Riverdale YM-YWHA - has six units spoken for, three he's holding onto because he doesn't want to sell until the dismal market turns around ("But make me an offer anyway," he quips), and another four-bedroom, four-bath affair, already built, that he'd like to sell for $1.85 million.

But the development sits above a steep slope and neighbors to the west between Independence Avenue and Ladd Road - like Dr. James Strain, whose home has been flooded repeatedly since construction began - have threatened to contest any applications for certificates of occupancy until storm drainage issues are resolved.

Mr. Wagner says he has recently paved a winding road between his homes and Dr. Strain's property, the curves in the road include storm sewers, and he believes those sewers will eliminate the flooding problems.

But there's also the half-finished concrete skeleton that looms over Riverdale Avenue from its perch at 3620 Oxford Ave., on the corner of Tulfan Terrace. Calcified by a combination of a lack of financing - a financial backer came under federal indictment and left the project - and the arthritic credit market, construction on Mr. Wagner's tower has stopped in its tracks.

Still, Mr. Wagner tends to look on the bright side.

"This is, unfortunately, a great building and a great location that got sort of tangled up with the issues with the DOJ [Department of Justice] from two years ago. We're still in the process of trying to refinance that one," he said, reached by phone last week.

"The issue really is just, it's a very weak economy," he later added. "Lenders are not particularly anxious to get back in the lending arena."

The building also has other issues - like how much its neighbors dislike it, and a hearing before an administrative law judge of the Environment Control Board scheduled for Friday, May 2, concerning a complaint issued April 12 for a 100-foot-high by 70- foot-long scaffold left on the site. The permit to keep that scaffold expired in December.

Like everything else on the site, the scaffolding sits idle. Mr. Wagner says work hasn't been done on the site for months.

"People who live around there have been dealing with that shell for a long time," said Community Board 8 Chairman Tony Cassino. "It's hard to live next to a shell. People around there have been worrying about safety for a long time."

Mr. Cassino called the project "a huge lesson."

"They took half of that street, bought out those homeowners at a very high price that no homeowner could have said no to, destroyed that little bucolic street, put up that huge structure, and now it's in trouble," he said.

Mr. Wagner was more upbeat. Whoever finishes the project will reap huge rewards, he said. He placed prices at the Tulfan Terrace building, which, if it's finished, will have about 30 units, between $800,000 and $1 million per apartment. He's just not sure he'll be the one to finish construction.

And he doesn't think it's fair to say the building won't be finished.

"I think that some of that cynicism comes from the idea that builders work in a bit of a vacuum," he said. "You know, that whatever we had as resources and timeframes two and three years ago still apply today. I think that anybody who listens to the radio or reads a paper really has to understand that we are in uncharted territory when it comes to real estate development, regardless of who's doing it or what the project is."

"People look at national trends and don't understand that real estate's like the weather," Mr. Wagner said. "Just because it's raining in Dallas, that doesn't mean it's raining in New York, but they're frightened because it's raining in Dallas."

According to statistics maintained by The Press, Riverdale's housing market remains fairly strong - though condo sales in larger buildings have not been meeting expectations.

And if Mr. Wagner sells the Oxford Avenue development - to get out of the rain, as it were - that would be a welcome turn of events in the eyes of City Councilman Oliver Koppell, whose wife, attorney Lorraine Coyle Koppell, was an intermediary between Tulfan Terrace residents and Mr. Wagner's group when the developers first assembled the property.

"It might be good to get someone who has financing and can finish the project, yes, it would be very good," said Mr. Koppell. "This guy, he's stalled. The quicker we can get someone in to finish the job, the better."

This is part of the May 1, 2008 online edition of The Riverdale Press.

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